XLYIII REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



England coast as not to be considered worthy of capture, and was con- 

 sidered a positive nuisance when taken. It is only within a few years 

 that our people have come to learn their excellence and value, but they 

 have already disappeared almost entirely from the in shores of l^ew 

 England, and have even gradually become exterminated in nearly all 

 waters of less than five hundred feet in depth. 



The inquiry now arises as to the causes of the terrible depletion of the 

 inhabitants of the water, and one so detrimental to human interests. 

 The question relates in part to an actual extermination, and in part to 

 a disappearance from accessible fishing-grounds. The i^ractical result 

 to the fishing interest is about the same in either case. 



It is quite safe to assume that most species of the ocean fishes, in their 

 abundance and ability to escape the pursuit of man, are less amenable 

 to destructive influences than those of the interior waters, the halibut 

 being perhaps one of the few exceptions of a species that may be con- 

 sidered actually exterminated over a certain area. That the supply of 

 nearly all other hinds in the inshore fisheries of America everywhere 

 has diminished in enormous ratio is unquestioned. What were and are 

 the causes, and what the remedy*? 



One most plausible solution of the problem is to be found in the very 

 close relationships between the so-called anadromous fishes and those 

 permanently resident in the ocean. The anadromous species are repre- 

 sented by the salmon, the shad, the fresh-water herring or alewife, and 

 some other kinds, which, although spending the greater part of their 

 life in the ocean, periodically enter the fresh waters, in greater or less 

 numbers, and ascend as high as they can for the purpose of finding 

 suitable places wherein to deposit their spawn. This done, the parent 

 fish soon returns, leaving the young to follow. The young shad or 

 herring remain in the rivers three or four months and then go down to 

 the ocean. The salmon is more persistent, the young remaining from 

 one to two years, after which they too descend to the sea, and, like the 

 shad and herring, for the most part there attain their entire growth. It 

 is not thought that either the parent fish or the young go to any great 

 distance from the mouths of the rivers, and it is believed that the fish 

 born in one stream never think of entering any other than that in which 

 they first made their appearance. 



Bearing in mind the countless myriads of these fishes formerly entering 

 our rivers — the shad and herring along the entire coast of the United 

 States to the Bay of Fundy, the salmon from the Connecticut east- 

 ward — and noting the extent to which they are preyed upon by the 

 more rapacious inhabitants of the sea, we may understand why such 

 multitudes of the larger fish formerly approached the shores in pursuit 

 until deterred by the increasing shoalness or freshness of the water. 

 Even then, however, they would remain near the shore, lying in wait 

 for the parents and their young returning in such vast quantities dur- 

 ing the later months of the year. In all probability these constituted 



